The fearless honesty of 'Wild,' now out in paperback

At a moment of profound loss—the death of her mother, depression, divorce and even a dangerous flirtation with heroin—25-year-old Cheryl Strayed set out to hike 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail through California and Oregon. Strayed captured both the physical toll and the hard-won healing process of her long-distance hike...

Book Clubs Column by Julie Hale

ONE CRUCIAL CHOICEM.L. Stedman’s debut novel, The Light Between Oceans, is a poignant page-turner that marks the arrival of an impressive new literary talent. Tom Sherbourne minds the lighthouse on Janus Rock, an island off the coast of Australia. A World War I veteran with a strong sense of right and wrong, Tom leads a quiet life until he meets outgoing, bubbly Isabel. Eager for marriage...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Wild, Cheryl Strayed’s vibrant, boldly honest, best-selling memoir, grabs you from the very first lines, and you’ll get to know her before, during and after her intense, difficult, soul-saving hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. Strayed started this wilderness trek to take herself out of her own wilderness, out of being as “low and mixed-up” as she had ever been, out of her...

Epiphany among the blisters

A profound and moving pilgrimage through the wilderness of grief, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is one of the best American memoirs to emerge in years. After the shock of her mother’s unexpected death, 25-year-old Strayed is profoundly lost in the world, her family shattered. In the tradition of Thoreau and Kerouac, she finds herself again by hitting the road, or in this case,...